A fine winter's Dogwalk

[urbpan]

This was the coldest morning of the winter so far, but it didn't feel as bad as yesterday, with its gale-driven snow shards. It's bright and clear, and there are many birds out. You won't see them in this post, but cottonmanifesto is busily working on her post, which may include buffleheads, a great blue heron, a Cooper's hawk, a red-bellied woodpecker, and a finch--either a purple finch or a house finch. After six years of birding, I still can't tell the difference, and no one has been able to adequately explain how they can tell the difference either. She just called me from the other room, confused, comparing her photos with a field guide. Now I think it might be a common redpoll. Stay tuned.



Charlie likes to scratch and bite at the ice.





Phragmites reeds.



It will be interesting to compare this post with cottonmanifesto's post. She is on the far right of this panorama, photographing the heron which is just a light smeary dot on the left.



We had a warm rain on Saturday, which caused these wood ear fungus to appear. Then the temperature dropped over 30 degrees on Sunday, and froze them into place.

Comments

[aemiis-zoo.livejournal.com]

Will those fungi survive being frozen? Or does freezing kill them?

[urbpan.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I don't know. But they can survive drying out (they dry out to black crust when it's dry out, and rehydrate when it's humid) so I bet they can survive being frozen. They only need to survive long enough to sporulate, I suppose anyway.

[brush-rat.livejournal.com]

I love it when you talk dirty.

[vampyrusgirl.livejournal.com]

There used to be a regular finch at my feeder that I thought was a purple finch, but I later decided it was a house finch. The house finch has a little less red to it, and the breast has some barring. Also, the top of the house finch's head is more brown, with the red being more mask-like. Mind you, I just checked my bird book to be able to describe it, but when I went to check my finch against the picture, it was spot-on. The barring is the easiest way to tell, though.

[cottonmanifesto.livejournal.com]

I think the most obvious difference in field markings from the house and purple finches vs. the redpoll is that the finches have dark bills and the redpoll has a very yellow one. The male house finches also do this thing where they sing from somewhere high up - I've seen them at my house before.

[bunrab.livejournal.com]

In the South, the purple finch is distinctly darker than the house finch.